


So softly it starts

by sprx77



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), The Hollows - Kim Harrison
Genre: A challenge: give me good sex, Alternate Universe, But doesn't quite know what they are, Demisexual person knows they're somewhere on the ace-spectrum, Demisexual person purposefully summons an incubus, Demon & Witches, F/M, First Meetings, Incubus Rumplestiltskin, Sex demon being flustered by cuddling and nonsexual affection, Sharing a Bed, So they summon a sex demon to figure it out, They don't bang in this, They just share a bed, Werewolves, Witch Belle, pure fluff basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 14:37:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11557251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sprx77/pseuds/sprx77
Summary: For the prompt:I didn’t mean for you to stay over but my roommate is already asleep and I don’t want to freak them out by having you stay on the couch so I guess you can sleep in my bed with me AUFt. Incubus!Rumple, Witch!Belle, and Werewolf!Ruby (mentioned).





	So softly it starts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chey15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chey15/gifts).



Belle makes a deal with a devil.

She had summoned him, as politely as possible-- an invitation, rather than a demand, and hadn’t _that_ been fun to cobble together out of illicit dark magic spell books-- and he had appeared, more curious than angry.

It had taken entire minutes for someone to take her up on the offer, but that’s what it was: an offer. He appears in her summoning circle wearing skin and wings.

(His head had tilted _just so_.)

_Belle_ certainly wouldn’t like to be yanked from her daily routine by a rude and painful transdimensional summoning spell.

She tells him as much, when he asks about the nonconventional summoning.

After they hash out the rules for him stepping out of the circle-- and by moon, the drama and horror that would erupt if the neighborhood or the city’s witches found out she even summoned a demon, let alone let it out of the circle binding it-- and he signs the the carefully thought-out, typed and printed, _page_ -long agreement in his own blood, she takes a deep breath and gives him leave to--

Well.

Leave.

The glowing perimeter of her circle, at least.

She has to get on with cleaning the salt lines off the floor and making the evening meal, since it’s her night to cook, and therefore she has no time for baited breath, fear and wasting time watching him; the agreement was as ironclad as she could make it.

She wouldn’t have summoned him without being absolutely sure. Why back out or hesitate now?

He, equally without trepidation, walks fluidly from the confines of the circle.

She could say that his eyes glow, but they don’t. They’re ocher and his eyebrows raise at her momentary attention. He’s amused. She rolls her eyes.

Belle shares an apartment with Ruby. They’d ascertained early on each other’s nature-- one a witch, another a werewolf-- and had kept to careful but unspoken bits of roommate courtesy since.

Ruby buys milk if she drinks the last of it; Belle takes out the trash if she sees it’s full; they let each other know in advance if company is coming over, try not to listen to obnoxiously loud music, don’t leave things lying about in the living room and, at least on Belle’s part, she tries to clean up all evidence of spellcasting in the kitchen before it can be noticed.

She assumes Ruby does the same thing, but not-- Belle doesn’t know, shedding on the carpet or bringing home dead rabbits? Only, that sounds terribly prejudiced and much like something her _dad_ would say, which makes her want to apologize to Ruby even if the other girl hadn’t _heard_ the comments.

So, par the course, Belle shoos the incubus out of his summoning circle and yanks it back into this reality with an effort of will. The weird, red double-lay of the Ever After fades from everything but the candles, and those she extinguishes with a tiny gesture.

_Nox_.

Her herbs hang above the island, dried and quite fetching to see, and she adds the spellbook she was using to the bookshelf in the kitchen. It still sends a little thrill through her to have not one but _two_ bookshelves in the kitchen: one for cookbooks, the other for spellbooks.

Of course, all her _theory_ books are in her room, and in the living room, and stacked in corners, come to think of it, but the _point_ is she has a proper witch’s kitchen and it makes her wiggle with happiness sometimes.

The incubus looks around curiously as she cleans up, not commenting on or letting his eyes linger on anything in particular.

Probaby, Belle thinks as she sweeps the salt from the floor, inviting a long-term guest into the house without asking first is just a tad on the nose, as far as roommate courtesy goes.

But, she reasons, it’s for a good cause.

Ruby, something closer to a true friend now than the convenient stranger she’d started out being to Belle, has oft lamented her lack of a sex life. Or, rather, the frustration that she can literally smell on Belle.

Actually, Belle changes her mind. Ruby will be _overjoyed_ to entertain a sex demon house guest. Wryly, she pictures all the curious questions and inappropriate-- or is that, ‘rather appropriate’ in this case?-- topics of discussion.

She fixes dinner for the both of them, along with a bit rarer section of meat for her roommate that goes into the microwave to wait, and fields the demon’s questions all the while. She shoots her own back, one for one, and he fesses up bits of knowledge easily enough.

Six O’clock in the evening rolls by, and then seven, and Belle is finally forced to concede that Ruby will have a long night at the office. She grudgingly pulls Ruby’s plate from the microwave and covers it to go in the fridge.

Belle leans her back against the fridge, feeling cute magnets move around minutely. She loosely crosses her arms.

“So, you’re telling me the witches who summon you are just magically attracted to your specific body type? And, for that matter, gender?”

Probably it was a lust spell, or some low-key potion-- she didn’t know-- maybe on his skin, like lotion? No, it’d have to activate as soon as they saw him somehow-- maybe a perfume he sprayed on right before being summoned, that wafted over?

Maybe a spell, like she’d originally thought, that he cast without thinking. Maybe a mental influence, psychically, or-- a physical one? Lust pheromones?

She wracked her brain, jumping from thought to thought like lightning, yet nothing could explain how it worked on every other witch in the world but her.

He _laughed_ , though not unkindly, tipping back his chin and letting it happen with his whole body. It shook down his shoulders, pulled-to wings quivering; it shook his hair about his small horns, brown and wavy; it rippled the muscles of his stomach-- likewise human, as far as her eyes could perceive-- and his decidedly inhuman tail flicked a little, to and fro.

“Hells, no! Can you imagine looking one way and satisfying all the people I have? And with my true form, at that.” Again, he chuckles.

“This form you see is a solid illusion, tailored to your preferences. It’s done via _extremely_ passive telepathy-- or empathy?-- I’m not in control of the sense, in any case. It’s like your endocrine system; your body responds to external stimuli, human women synch up their menstrual cycles, etc. Entirely unconscious.”

Belle felt her brow furrow.

“What on earth does your true form look like?” And what did it say about her that she ‘preferred’ a Scottsman with semi-traditional demon features? Maybe she sees what she expects to see, since she doesn’t really _have_ an ideal sexual partner.

Only, she was fairly certain her default expectation was for some Lucifer-esque, pretty blonde. All blue-green glowing eyes and a smolder. Leather pants, maybe. Some fallen angel who exuded sex appeal like it was going out of style.

The wings were frankly surprising. And why would she want him to have horns? It definitely added to the _demonic_ aspect of things, as did his slit pupils, but otherwise...

“Wings, tail, the whole nine yards,” He admits candidly. “I don’t look in mirrors often, only once a decade or so, but I haven’t changed since then, either, so my hair is a few shades lighter than yours--”

With wide eyes, she tries not to let her expression show that she’s struck dumb with realization. He takes it as the surprise he was expecting from her at his words, nodding. She feels slightly bad at the deception, but bites her lip to quell any urge to disabuse him of the wrong notion.

Reaching out for a something else to talk about, she is appalled to come up lacking. Usually, Belle’s the most loquacious person in the room. Now, she finds herself tongue tied.

She supposed it could be worse. There _could_ be an elephant in the room. She’d worried, as she began the summoning ritual, that he’d show up naked and... _ready to go_ , as it were. Expectant.

Instead he’d appeared in rather fetching attire; outdated, but lovely. An outfit almost artfully incomplete: a thin blazer, cut expensively and exquisitely, worn over... nothing at all. Worn over bronze skin and strong soldiers, leaving open the smooth dip of his collar bones, light hitting the line of his throat and shadows pooling in the hollow of it, fabric dipping down to his barely-defined abdominal muscles, draping neatly at his lean hips, a trim waist that, with the rest of it, had her palms itching for paints.

Watercolor? No, oil. A kitchen scene, mostly shadows, with candlelight catching on his skin, flame reflecting gold in his eyes. He wore dress pants and shoes, both the same black as the blazer and his extra-human adornments-- appendages?

His horns curled, chthonic, an inch or two into his hairline and pointing backwards. She was surprised by how natural they appeared on him, as natural as the wings and the tail, and by how comfortable he seemed in all three.

The tail had a fletched point, like an arrow, and interrupted aureate skin like a line of ink where it curved close to his navel. If he were wearing, say, a white dress shirt...

He cleared his throat, and her eyes shot back up to his immediately.

“Sorry,” She nearly says, and slams her mouth closed so hard on the word that she almost draws blood. It stings, at least, and what comes out is more of a gurgle.

He looks at her like she’s taken leave of her senses. Finally, he brushes it off.

“Mortals,” He murmurs, and she would be offended if she weren’t embarrassed for the uncouth staring.

“Would you like something more comfortable to wear for the evening?”

And what, pray tell, did she have to offer him?

Belle berates herself for her shortsightedness. In her defense, she’d assumed if they got so far as to sign the contract, the night’s agenda would be thus: ‘from kitchen to bedroom, from bedroom to orgasm, orgasm, orgasm’.

And then maybe like, a shower, or something.

She’d never had sex she enjoyed; how could she know the ideal experience?

He looks surprised at her offer-- perhaps rightly, as she can’t imagine he and his past bed partners sleeping in more than their own skin, thoroughly sated after the aforementioned three or more orgasms-- and then thoughtful.

“If I’m to sleep as a guest in your home,” He acknowledges.

“Right. Sleeping arrangements.” He looks at her, and she realizes she’s spoken aloud.

His head tilts just _so_ in evident query.

“We... don’t have a guest bed.” She admits, tamping down a rush of embarrassment that threatens to rise to her cheeks. Honestly, they’re 24 and barely done with college; they’re lucky to afford the two bedroom apartment.

That in mind, she presses on.

“You can... have the... “ _Couch_ , she starts to say, but _fuck_. Visions of unhappily startled werewolf dance in her mind, a Ruby with hell-lit silver eyes, snarling.

“I don’t want my roommate to freak out on finding a stranger in the apartment, so the couch might not be the best idea.” She corrects mid-sentence.

The apartment is, after all, firmly _her_ territory, despite how friends had occasionally stayed over in their early college days.

Those were uniformly people who had a) stayed over before, b) were well-known to Ruby, and c) smelled familiar.

This was a stranger, and a demonic one at that. How would he smell to an already-off guard werewolf? How would anyone react to a sudden demon who was, for all they knew, uninvited?

Belle could text her-- but what if she didn’t look at her phone? It’s not the kind of thing she can explain in a text, but if she tried and Ruby didn’t check the damn thing, they’d be right back to Ruby getting home unaware of the guest, a wolf looking out of a human face, kill-mode activated.

The incubus was bound by contract, an agreement not to harm anyone, by word or deed; did it extend to self-defense? It was, Belle realized, a situation she’d rather avoid, a question she didn’t want to know the answer to.

The demon waits patiently, looking at her.

“You could resummon me upon the morn?” He proposes. He doesn’t look especially thrilled about the idea, and then Belle speaks at the same time he does--

“With that ritual, there’s no guarantee--”

“Although, you’d risk getting a _different_ \--”

Both stop.

He scows.

Belle huffs.

Left unspoken was the fact of his summon-name, which she wasn’t about to ask for and he wasn’t about to offer. So, no, she wasn’t going to summon him again.

Used to be, demons could only be summoned at night, and the rising sun forced them back to their Realm; however, ten years ago a witch-turned-demon had brought a storm of change, lifting the curse and allowing them to endure daylight freely, though they still needed to be summoned to get across the ley lines from one world to another.

Fortunately, there was nothing stopping one demon from summoning another, so that wasn’t much of a problem. To summon a specific demon, however, one needed to know that demon’s name. The spell Belle had chosen utilized a different configuration for where the ‘name’ went in the spell: a character unreadable to her, that the book translated loosely to be-- well.

It was sigil-marker that meant ‘one of several sex demons’, basically.

Having discovered they couldn’t magically make her want to hop into bed with them, she’d sooner give the experiment up as a failure than try again and again. Not all demons, she knew, would be as reasonable as this one.

“Obviously not an option,” Belle summarizes, succinct as possible.

“Obviously,” He bites off, before taking a measured breath.

He stands, in one sweeping movement. Belle keeps her place only because the fridge is behind her, which she stupidly presses her back to just that much more firmly. What is she going to do, run? He can’t hurt her, and she doesn’t think he’d try-- it’s just.

Instinct, maybe.

At the sudden movement.

Belle feels a tad bit strangled with her thoughts.

“I’ll take the raiments offered,” The incubus says formally, and Belle does colour a bit at that, even as she steps gladly forward and past him, happy to have something to do, that she can do well, without stumbling.

_Honestly_ , she’s a strong, competent witch. This shouldn’t have her so wrong-footed. It’s the disruption to her routine, surely. The fact that the evening deviated so wildly from her plans.

Everything is happening on the fly-- decisions being made without preparation.

As Belle brushes by him to exit the kitchen, she wonders what she’ll give him to wear.

What does she have that will fit six-foot-sexy?

More than that-- and godsdamnit, this time she _does_ stumble-- where will he sleep?

Only, the thought skitters across her mind like: _wHERE WILL HE SLEEP?_

Out of nowhere, she’s reminded that they hadn’t established it, had instead gotten sidelined with tangential discussion, tripping over trust issues and summon names.

A strangled sound escapes her.

“Alright?” The demon calls, and her cheeks flush an irritated red at making a denizen of hell worry for her safety. That’s insulting; a rabbit tripping so badly the wolf stops to check on it instead of eating it.

Only, witches used to be demons, once upon a time, and she’s more like a coyote, damnit. She has magic coiled, warm and leashed in her synapses, spindled and waiting to be unleashed.

“Everything’s copacetic!” She hollers back, and anger with _herself_ shows in the halfway-to-harsh tone. She’s off-kilter and hates it, lapsing into needless ( _pretentious_ , voices of the past whisper) vocabulary she usually boxes away for essays.

What even is self control.

She shoves into her bedroom and then her closet.

What does she have that could even _remotely_ fit a large man?

She forces herself to calm down. Or, in lieu of that, breathe deep and close her eyes. Untense her shoulders, let the line of her spine straighten with controlled purpose.

Strong, independent witch.

Strong and capable and quite frankly, brilliant.

She exhales and moves to her chest of drawers. She has several extra-extra large shirts she likes to curl up in bed with. Hell, they’re technically pyjamas, by that definition.

They’re certainly soft enough, she’s made sure of that-- with both careful store selection and years of washing.

She grabs some basketball shorts as well, remnants of summers spent theoretically jogging.

As in, _in theory,_ she will get to that eventually. One of these years. Exercise the body as you exercise the brain, they say.

Belle forces herself to walk casually back to the kitchen, banishing stiffness from her neck with an easy rolling of the muscles there.

She hands the bundle of cloth to the demon.

“It’s not much,” she finds herself confessing a bit sheepishly. “We’re not quite the same size.”

Amber eyes glance from the bundle to her frame, and then back up. He shrugs, wings rolling with his shoulder blades. She carefully doesn’t track the movement.

How will he get the fabric past them?

The answer hits her like a sledgehammer.

He’s a demon. Who knows demon magic.

He’s a _demon_ ; eldgergods, he can take care of him _self_.

Belle rolls her eyes at herself, resolves to be more careful in the presence of this otherworldly creature, and then promptly invites him into her bed.

_Well_ , she reasons as his eyebrow raises--

It _was_ the point of the ritual. It’s not like she hadn’t intended to have him there. She’d straightened up and everything, ensured she had clean sheets-- though surely she’d have to clean them again?

Even bad sex was messy.

She bites her lip as he fails to speak.

Finally, his lips curl into an amused smile.

“Alright, little witch.” He says, soft mouth producing softer words.

“I don’t want to sleep with you,” She reminds, and feels steel at her spine. The decision not to have sex with people she didn’t really _want_ to fuck had been a hard one, but it was a line she wouldn’t cross once she described it in the sand.

She liked herself too much to fuck a guy-- or a girl, for that matter-- who she didn’t _want_ , want so much that she never had to ask herself ‘is this it?’ She was tired of nights justifying unsatisfying sexual encounters, thinking ‘ _this is as much as I’ve wanted anybody, is this it?’_

If she has to ask herself, to question how she feels and work to find any desire, then it _can’t_ be it.

So she resolved not to get into bed with _anyone._

Not because they want to, or expect it; not because they ask; not because she’s tired of being alone and can _almost_ convince herself it’ll be worth the uncomfortable slide of skin on skin, sweaty grasping, fumbling bodies for the fleeting feel of doing what she’s _supposed to do_.

She likes herself too much.

He looks at her, mildly approving, until the smile stretches into a half-smirk.

Heat builds in those eyes, a steady thing until they actually glow, the otherworldly light she’d expected from the beginning; liquid gold.

He meets her eyes, steps just close enough that his breath brushes the hair at her neck. The height difference is only a few inches, no more than half a foot, and looking down like he is they’re nearly face to face.

She doesn’t dare breathe, still as a deer in the headlights.

She can feel the warmth off his skin.

“Yet.”

The world curls in the air between them, even after he’s long gone, having stepped toward her bathroom with his bundle of borrowed clothes before she regains the ability to move her body.

She huffs, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips that she fails to resist.

“That’s what I’m hoping for,” She admits to the empty kitchen.

She drags out a spare comforter, practical knowledge from sleepovers past, and arranges the pillows on her queen sized bed.

He should look ridiculous, when he emerges from the bathroom clad in a shirt that threatens to fall off one shoulder even on his tall frame, but instead he looks-- at home.

It’s oddly intimate. His hair curl-waves down to his shoulders.

She’s taken the time to hurriedly change into a more modest version of her own bedtime attire-- usually a slightly oversized shirt and panties, only-- and wonders how well she’ll sleep in fuzzy pyjama pants.

Wonders how well she’ll sleep next to a demon.

“Left or right?” She asks, surprised to find her voice steady. She feels at home, too, in her own skin, even, quite aside from this being _her_ domain.

He watches her with something she can’t name in his expression, and she feels her chin lift just a little in challenge. She’s not afraid of him.

Even if it would be smarter, maybe, for her to be.

He can’t do anything to her, bound by his own words and blood in a magical contract, and the power dynamics here are in her favor.

She’s sure he could find some loophole, or manage some overwhelming evil, but.

But.

She doesn’t think he wants to.

The demon rolls his eyes at her brass courage-- her rabbit’s courage, facing down a lion-- and surprises her by stretching his arms above his head and yawning.

“Human food is delicious,” He explains tiredly. “But I was summoned and the ‘meal’ I usually get from such is beyond compare, for my kind.”

He waves off whatever response she’d have to that.

“It’s no matter, obviously. Just tireder than I would be this time of night if things _had_ gone that direction.”

She laughs, despite herself.

“I prefer the right side,” She opens up with, and he nods agreeingly.

They assume their various sides with easy acceptance and only a tad bit of embarrassment painting the air. Most of it, she’s surprised to find, is from _him_.

“Be quiet.” He hisses, as she stares at his red cheeks, bright under the perfectly sculpted cheekbones. “I’ve never... I’ve never shared a bed with someone without...”

“Prurient circumstances?”

“... Just so.”

She tries not to laugh and mostly succeeds.

“You don’t cuddle?” She can’t help but ask, fascinated even as she turns off the light with a small hand gesture and a mutter of latin.

“In the _afterglow_.” He hisses, like even that bears defending.

They shuffle around some.

Belle is amazed at how light-hearted this is, how comfortable she manages to be despite everything.

In fact, full from dinner and in her fuzzy pyjamas, she could fall asleep rather easily, demon or no demon.

“Little witch?” Asks the incubus, and Belle cracks one eye open to realize the shadows have gotten a tiny touch darker. She lost some time, and even now her thoughts are blurry with sleep.

“Demon?” She asks, lips barely parting.

“Goodnight.”

A low sound in the dark.

She lets her eyes flutter shut once more.

“Goodnight.” She answers, and fleetingly hopes he manages to hear it despite how deep she is in the pillow.

She sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can come bug me @ definitelynotaminion.tumblr.com/ask
> 
> I'm always happy to talk, though I will confess that OuaT is not one of my fandoms and I *mostly* write this pairing for my roommate.
> 
> Title, to those who caught it, is indeed the quote by Algaliarept from The Outlaw Demon Wails.


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